Guest Book Way out in the wilderness
a Lone Coyote Calls.
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
that's a-hangin' on the wall.
-B DylanSign View 
Does the government know who you are?
No? . . . Let me help you fix that - and save you $10 at the same time!!!!
Lonesome Coyote survives!
Or: How Rollie builds his personal mythology from the chains he makes and breaks in the Horse Beatitudes .
Guest Book Way out in the wilderness
a Lone Coyote Calls.
Your eyes fix on the shotgun
that's a-hangin' on the wall.
-B DylanSign View Does the government know who you are?
No? . . . Let me help you fix that - and save you $10 at the same time!!!!
The Chocolate Horseman's Last Ride | Hand and Foot:
The Best of the News
The coming of the American corporatocracy Fort Huachuca? I Remember That The most profound of all religious statements
The infamous Wisconsin Snow Turd!
Lone Coyote Calls' Photos
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From the Horse Beatitudes ...
Under the Bristlecone Pine It is in our nature + our destiny to constantly war with each other (Lords of the Starship). If we destroy ourselves + the planet doing so, then that is the way of the universe. That's one way of looking at it - Krishna's admonition to Arjuna. Life is as it is. Learn what it is, + learn to live without resistance to it. Another way of looking at it - Jesus' call to humans to revolutionize their spirits, overcome the destructive impulses + work at a new consciousness, build a new society which adds compassion, empathy, love to the old eye-for-eye laws (Andrew Harvey's Son of Man). So Rollie sits under his tree, dreaming of another consciousness, working out in the model the problems he couldn't face while awake, solving the problems in his dreams + bringing the solutions back. Yeah, he wished. He wished he could just remember what the dreams were, let alone how they solved his problems. Jesus dreamed + brought those dreams back to his life. Arjuna dreamed, and it was his life. Where did Rollie go with this? Where was Jim? Jim is in the tree. Jim is in the sweat-soaked sand under Rollie's ass. Jim is in the lightning gashing soundlessly above the roiling western sky. Jim's voice is among the chorus that comes with the dust + is gone with Woody's wind. Rollie sees all that - in his desert dream. And then he wakes, + he forgets. He sees only the purple sky, the khaki sand, the sweat + urine pooled under his haunch. The black bird croaks. The dream is one tattered ribbon flapping from its beak. The black bird flits. Rollie topples to the dust. His red skin gets redder. "I need a shade. I need to get out of the stinking sun. I need some peace." But peace is foreign here, under the bristlecone pine, in the flatiron desert of a mangled continent floating in a cesspool sea under maggot clouds squirming for foothold in the broiling universe of shame. "I need peace!" is just one more black bird croak flung into the grappling heat that churned around him. He could slit his own throat. He could spread his blood across the stinking sand. He could exhale all the foul odors stored inside him into the polluted oxygen he swam in. He could rip his body to shreds + chunks + let the black bird feast. He could cash in his life insurance policy! He could drive down the river of madness to bomb Toad Hall, toss the money-changers from the Temple, spit on the whited sepulchers, hang himself high on the black bird's tree like Jim did. And the universe would not for a moment give a sigh. Live with that, Arjuna! Live with that, Jesus! |
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November 11, 2008 Historic Day for AmericaCopyright © 2008 Bob Persons
Polls are open in the east. New York Times this morning
calls it an 'epic campaign'.
Nona and I voted early, at the city clerk's office
downtown, a couple weeks ago; waited in line about 45
minutes. I'll miss (for the second pres election in a
row) the ambiance of the official polling place, but it
wasn't much anyway, and the clerk's office had a good
feeling anyway, with theo other voters in line.
Historic. I can't believe Obama will lose. The man has
been unstoppable, even with the McCain campaign's focus
on dirty tricks the last 2 months.
Historic. First black man as president. Wow! This day
has been a long time coming, and about time it happened.
Not only a black president, but a well qualified one.
Young, but so much enthusiasm, good policies, and calm
in the face of a 2-year storm of campaigning.
Historic. A woman picked as vice president material. A
vast mistake, as far as I'm concerned, the particular
woman picked. Sarah Palin would grate on me for 4 years
if McCain won, especially that voice and too-
quick-for-thinking responses to questions.
But 8 years of the worst presidency in my lifetime,
perhaps all of America's lifetime, have been
devastating. 8 years of moving the nation's wealth
upward to those already with far more wealth than anyone
could possibly use. 8 years of unbelievable incompetence
- think Hurricane Katrina, pre- emptive war, the
continuing Iraq boondoggle, the failure to tackle al
Qaida in their homeland (as they attacked us in our
homeland). 8 years of thumbing executive noses at the
laws that Congress has passed (they should all be thrown
in the clink for a long time, if not hanged for
treason). 8 years of monitoring my telephone calls and
emails without just cause or warrants. 8 years of
rewarding executive and financial incompetence in the
public and private worlds. 8 years of crippling deficits
and debt piling up, and the worst economic meltdown in
80 years. 8 years of watching America's world reputation
sink into the mud. 8 years of watching America's
inventiveness, creativity, entrepreneurial expertise,
craftsmanship exported to foreign nations. 8 years of
continuing to allow, and actually abetting, the
deterioration and actual destruction of our environment.
Obama offers real hope of emerging from this mess
chastised, re- invigorated, ready to offer real,
class-less solutions to problems, ready to lead the
world once again with our example of fair mindedness,
equality of opportunity, vigorous creativity and
craftsmanship.
Al Qaida's main tool in recruiting soldiers to their
cause is America's decadence, declining spiritual
values, and imposition of policy in the homelands of
Muhammad and his followers. We have allowed our nation
to slip into that state, a state in which al Qaida
carries the truth. It is time for us to recover our
original ideal bearings and give the lie to the
terrorists' justifications for attacking us. The
terrorists may liken themselves to warriors, but they
are criminals and murderers and should be approached as
such.
John Kerry's proposed policy of fighting an
'intelligent' war in Iraq, although vastly better than
the pre-emptive war policies of Bush, should be replaced
with a policy of finishing what we need to finish in
order to clean up the mess that has been made, then
getting our act together to implement policies that will
restore America as an admirable leader in the world. And
we can attack terrorism with policing policies, not the
beloved war machines of the republicans.
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June 1, 2005 The President's Culpability in America's DeclineCopyright © 2005 Bob PersonsMr. President: For four and one half years I have witnessed what to me is the steady decline of America's principles, integrity, and standing in the world community. Some of this is due to the American people themselves, especially the rampant and growing consumerism that seems to devour us. But the reason I am writing to you is to focus on your egregious role in this decline. Your lies that promoted the war on Iraq are unconscionable. Your collusion with Tony Blair to pursue this unjust action is, in my mind, criminal. Your post-fact justification of the war by saying its purpose is to bring democracy to the Middle East is not only a lie in itself (it ignores the false reasons you gave in early 2003), it is also an affront to the dignity and intelligence of the American people. The treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other prisons is disgusting, un-American, and in violation of American and international standards. To hold these people without charge for years, without access to lawyers or family, and then to torture and even kill them is beyond my comprehension of what America is all about - especially when it is known that many of these people are innocent and were unluckily caught up in a dragnet. Yet you see this as a problem with just a few GIs! Mr. President, if the commanders of those GIs did not know what was going on, they were doing a lousy job. And if their own commanders did not know, they too were doing a lousy job. This goes all the way up the chain of command. It is the duty of officers all the way up to the Commander in Chief to make sure their charges are carrying out legal and just orders that fit within all national and international standards of justice. Yet the only justice served after over a year has been to punish a few low-level scapegoats! I am convinced that you have on your desk a sign that reads "The buck never gets here." This washing your hands of responsibility is disgusting. Your attitude toward the natural environment that we all live in and can't afford to destroy is beyond my comprehension. There can be no "compromise" between environment and business. If business practises destroy resources, then that destruction must be stopped. Even business must recognize that a healthy environment provides the necessary infrastructure for it to pursue profit. The wealth of natural resources, the air, water, and soil, the forest and mountains, the rivers and lakes, do not belong to business. They belong to the American people to lease to business as it pleases them. And any destruction of those resources must be met with punishment (as a deterrent) and obligation to restore those resources. Yet all your policies regarding the environment seem to be aimed first at protecting business interests. If environmental concerns impede the rapid pursuit of profit, under your programs the environment suffers. And when the environment suffers, all Americans and business ultimately suffer. Your short-sightedness on this matter is disgraceful. These three issues - the war, the treatment of prisoners, and the environment- are but two in a host of issues that have conspired to bring America to its lowest level of integrity in a century. Another major problem is your notion that you can increase spending while decreasing revenue, at no harm to the nation. Anybody with a home budget and calculator can tell you this is completely bogus. Tie that in with the decreased revenue benefiting already rich folk and corporations, and you have a perversity that serves only to widen even further the gap between rich and poor, labor and management, the power of money and the misery of poverty. But it seems to me that that is exactly what you want. Only the rich in America get to enjoy the riches of America. Mr. President, it's one thing to advocate that every person stand on his own two feet without handouts from the government. It's yet another thing to take handouts from the poor and give them to the rich! In the midst of all this I hear you proclaim your devotion to faith and the Christian principles you claim guide you. Mr. President, this is utter hypocrisy! You have committed numerous "sins" by the light of those Christian principles. You capitalized on the misery, suffering, and despair of the 9/11 catastrophe to selfishly promote the agenda you've had for America for years. You care so much for the rich and powerful that you conspire with business interests to make them even more rich and powerful. But the poor - well, they can just fend for themselves. You protect those who instigated the torture practises by claiming the documentation for those practises is classified. You claim as your philosophy a "culture of life", ignoring the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese while pursuing a deceitful war in Iraq that has resulted in over 1,800 Americans dead, countless others wounded, and countless Iraqis dead and wounded. And then you promote reductions in Veterans Administration budgets so returning troops suffer even more. The war was a bald lie. Your Social Security program is a bald lie. Your claims about the economy are bald lies. Mr. President, you are no Christian, so please stop claiming you are. Please stop pandering to those who support you only on your claim to the moral high ground. It's all lies. How many supporters would remain if you took away that false moral high ground? With all respect to the office you hold, I have to say you are the worst president in America's history. The America that was esteemed by the world as kind, generous, and a source of prosperity for all, has become an aggressor that cares only for its own well being even at the expense of the well being of other nations. I feel shame at what we have become. I am embarrassed every time you represent America when speaking to foreign nations. The only way you can continue to get away with this extremely un- American program is by fostering the most secretive government since Richard Nixon (and I believe you actually beat him at this). The press is shut out from information they need to properly inform the public of the workings of its government. The Congress is shut out from information it needs to properly assess the programs you are pushing. Unfortunately, the Congress - the representatives of the people - have been complicit in the downfall of America. They have done this by acceding to your unconstitutional appropriation of the congressional war-making powers, and by not insisting on hard facts and honest analysis for the programs you propose. The press, too, by and large has failed utterly to protect America from the lies and deceptions that you have employed to bring our nation to this state. It has done this by accepting without proper analysis your rationalizations for war, the economy, taxes, Social Security, Medicare, and a host of other issues which you have gotten just plain wrong but bullheadedly insist on pursuing to the nation's detriment. I think a major reason this has happened to America is that you have no realistic contact with the American public. You are out of touch with ordinary citizens (those who have little money power). All your meetings and press conferences are packed with your hand-picked supporters, and dissent results in expulsion. You meticulously cultivate your relations with big business while shrugging off any real concern for the welfare of ordinary citizens. You only concern yourself with individual people when you perceive them to have value for your political agenda. Mr. President, that is exactly backwards. Your constitutional duty is to the American people, not to wealth and power, not to the paper entities called corporations. Mr. President, in none of these arguments do I mean to denigrate the office of the President of the United States. I aimed my arguments at you, the person who currently occupies that office and is duty bound to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people's interests. Once again, Mr. President, you have gotten almost all of it wrong, and the American people are suffering and will continue to suffer enormously because of it. I would love to have a chat with you sometime, to help resolve the bad feelings I am having regarding the direction my country is headed. Some time when you have vacation time, instead of going to Crawford, come visit Madison, Wisconsin. I will treat you to a turtle sundae at Michael's (the best ice cream in the world!). And maybe you can straighten me out. I would love to be shown I am wrong, because my current condition is near hopelessness for the future of America. |
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May 25, 2004 The Worst of the Bush Administration:Impeach Them All!Copyright © 2004 Bob PersonsSo, less than a month after the damning photos were broadcast, the first GI has been charged, tried, convicted, and sentenced for abuse of prisoners in Iraq. It's amazing how fast the government can work when it is trying to contain a world-wide embarrassment. Now we are left with two questions:
This administration was informed of the abuses over a year ago, and was informed again and again over the past year. This administration admits the activities were wrong. Rumsfeld has known for at least four months. Bush has known for at least 3 months. An investigation was begun, but has plodded on for four months. Only the release of the photos caused anything real to happen. And now, less than a month later, one GI has been accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced with great speed, and others are soon to follow. It is the business of everyone in the chain of command to know what is going on in the links below. Every one in that chain of command is saying these abuses were terrible violations of international and American rules of wartime conduct, yet none are willing to say they have any responsibility for it. With the level of knowledge that the administration and the DOD had, why did they go public and take action only when forced to by the photos? And do you suppose the responsibility for the abuses will climb the ladder of the chain of command, pointing fingers at those who either knew or should have known because it is their job? How high will the indictments go? On whose desk will we see the sign "The buck stops here"? My impression, based on past experience, is that the desks of Runsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Bush, et al, are positioning themselves to have signs saying "The buck never gets here". Of all the disgusting things this administration has done to America, this blows the lid completely off its incompetence, mismanagement, and outright lying agenda. Start with the fact that this administration was not elected by the people; it was put in place by fiat from a bunch of lawyers and the Supreme Court. Then it proceeded to alienate our allies, one by one, until we have threadbare and shaky support around the world. Then it dismantles decades of environmental improvements. And it runs up record expenses while giving money away to rich folks. Record deficit. Record job losses. The beginning of the dismantling of the health care system. Decrying big government with one mouth while forcing school systems across the nation into a federal model, sticking its big nose into private American sex lives. Calling themselves conservatives, sworn to uphold the Constitution, while unravelling the fabric of the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act. Holding people (including Americans) for years without being charged and without communication with family or lawyers. And then subjecting them to inhuman abuses that defy international and national law. Inflicting a large, expensive war on the basis of lies and other manipulations of the facts and information, and having virtually no decent plan for following it up. The Bush administration is pursuing grand projects that are not in the interests of Americans, and using trickery and deceipt to get the American public on its side. This is the bunch that claims to be Christian and democratic idealists. The leader of this bunch is a religious zealot who is convinced God is talking to him, and that is why he can never admit being wrong or backtracking on any path he has set foot upon. It is well past time that this sickness that the Bush administration has inflicted on America is removed. How long must we suffer under a leadership that establishes its national policy on its knees in a dark room and carries out that policy in a darkness that shuts out the American people? When are Americans going to stand up en masse and say Enough! Throw the bums out! All of them! Before the next election, because we can't stand it any more. Write your congressional representatives, demand that impeachment proceedings be started, to remove the worst cancer on the American government in history and save our country from the black hole it has taken us into. |
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May 13, 2004 QuestionsCopyright © 2004 Bob PersonsQuestions that blazed through my mind, regarding the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Questions that demand answers not fully received yet.If the Red Cross has been reporting these problems for over a year, why is the public just now finding out about them? Who in the administration's chain of command decided to not make a big deal of it to the public? Why were appeals from other human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First, ignored by L. Paul Bremer and Condoleeza Rice? Did these groups complain to the wrong people in the administration? Do these members of the administration realize they were wrong? If so, why don't they say so? If not, why don't they say why they were justifying in turning deaf ears? Why did the Secretary of Defense first hear of it in January? Why did he not make a big deal of it to the public? Why did he not read the entire report? Or did he know earlier? If so, why did he not make a big deal of it to the public? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? And why did he not read the entire report? Why did the President first hear of it in February? Why did he not then make a big deal of it to the public? Or did he know earlier? If so, why did he not make a big deal of it to the public? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? Why did the Secretary of Defense first see the photos a couple weeks ago? Or did he see them earlier? Did he immediately see them as a big deal to the American public? If so, why didn't he say so then? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? Why did the President first hear of the photos after they were publicized on TV? Or did he know of them earlier? Did he immediately see them as a big deal to the American public? If so, why didn't he say so then, unambiguously? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? If investigations into the abuses began in January, why has nothing happened that would be worthy of note to the American people? On the other hand, why did it take a mere a week or so after publication of the photos to produce the first court martial? Is it any surprise to anyone that this court martial is of a low man on the totem pole? Was the speed at which this was accomplished, compared to the five-month produced-nothing investigation, a coincidence? magic? a result of officials falling over themselves to convince the American people they are on top of it? Did the soldiers commit these abuses on their own? If so, where were the commanders who should have been overseeing the operations? If not, who ordered or encouraged them to do these acts, and will those commanders be held responsible? Were the soldiers trained in the rules of prisoner treatment? If so, how did they get away with such abuses? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? And how did they get away with such abuses? Were the commanders given enough resources to adequately oversee the operations they were in charge of? If so, how could they miss what was going on? Or did they approve of what was going on? Or did they turn a blind eye to what was going on? If not, why not, and was that a mistake? Who was responsible for ensuring that the commanders were adequately supervising prison guards? Did they know what was going on? If so, why did they not stop it? If not, why not? Were the rules ignored in the hot pursuit of intelligence that might point to the elusive weapons of mass destruction and links to al Qaida and 9/11 in Iraq? If so, is this justification acceptable to the American people? If not, just why were the rules ignored, and was that a mistake? Why, after over a year of occupation, are we finally getting around to laying down "the foundations of how you detain people in a humane manner," as General Miller explained today? Was this of no importance until now? Was it the release of photos embarrassing to the administration that caused this change of plan? Might there be other atrocious activities going on at this minute, which will continue to go on because no damning photos have been released for Americans to see? If the Secretary of Defense cannot possibly oversee every detail of what goes on beneath him, was that responsibility delegated somewhere down the chain of command, with reporting coming back up to the Secretary of Defense? If so, what went wrong with this system? and will the Secretary of Defense take responsibility for what went wrong with his chain of command? If not, why not? If the President charges the Secretary of Defense with overseeing the chain of command that assigns responsibility at every level for the links below, and these abuses occurred rampantly anyway, will the President accept responsibility for the failure, since a single broken link will destroy the entire chain and he is responsible for keeping the chain intact? If responsibility in the chain of command lies at every link for the links below, will the prison guards share punishment with commanders all the way up the chain instead of becoming scapegoats? Will the President actually let the buck rise to reach his own desk for a change? Will he then proclaim that it assuredly stops there, even if it is pointing directly at him? Is the press afraid to ask these questions (and a host of others) in a time of war? Is the press afraid to ask these questions because they might alienate their readers? alienate their corporate sponsors? don't have enough newsprint on hand? Is it more concerned with publishing the pictures and reactions to them, than probing the immense system failure that allowed this to happen? I pass these questions on to Dr KnowItAll. Maybe he knows the answers. ... Or maybe he doesn't. |
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February 14, 2003 Seven Score and Zero Years AgoGoodbye, America
Now the American nation is poised to perish from the earth. It does not have to be! The government is no longer of the people, by the people, for the people. Substitute "corporations" for "people". The "conservative" administration ("compassionate" at that) is driving America down into a black hole from which it may take generations to emerge, and the rest of the world will fall like dominos into the same pit. It is not all Mr. Bush's fault. He would not have the power he wields now, if the people's representatives hadn't caved in and unconstitutonally granted it to him. Blame it, untimately, on the Congress. No, blame it on the people that elected and continue to support the representatives that gave away the people's power over their own nation. Instead of an America governed by the people, we now have a government controlled by business interests, to the point:
Now, we mount an impossible-to-lose mass of military might for a Valentine's Day Massacre and declare America immune from the guidelines that the rest of the world is expected to follow, resulting in the alienation of our allies and the furor of our enemies to the point where we and they are waving nuclear weapons at each other (just like India and Pakistan, whom we chastised for doing the very same thing). Did the American people ask for this? Do the American people want their government back? Even if money matters make the most difference, do they really think this is a better mode of living, where money flows from their own pockets into corporate pockets? Do Americans trust their government? If so, why? If not, why not put it back on track? But first, become familiar with the basic principles underlying our form of government. The Constitution (Section 8) declares that Congress (not the President) has the power:
It also declares (Amendment IV):
And (Amendment V):
We are not at war - yet. Congress has no excuse for abrogating its powers to the executive branch. The President was given emergency powers, but does 1-1/2 years of preparation constitute "emergency"? Congress likewise has no excuse for allowing the violation of the civil rights of citizens. Congress has, effectively, violated the Constitution and should be called to account for it. So, Mr. Lincoln, are you listening? Your beloved country is poised to perish from the earth, and the people who are supposed to govern themselves are so wrapped up in the magnificent playground they have created that they are too complacent to do anything but give their blessing. |
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Gotta make your own rules, child,
Gotta break your own chains.[Kris Kristoffersen]
"Here is the rule. Obey it."
"I have obeyed. To the letter."
"Break it!"
"But I will have torn down the virtue I have built up by obeying the rule."
"Break the rule!"
"I have broken the rule. My virtue? What does it matter?"
"What do you want now?"
"Nothing."
"What of the rule?"
"It will be kept. It is inevitable, for I seek nothing."
of you guys have been here since January 17, 2003 (my 23,095th day).
Breaking Through (Andre Vandenbroéck):
Stone Age man is not so much man living in the Stone Age, as it is stone turned into man by the effect of the age, the post-Adamic. The rock is the basic stratum, the bottom of the pit that ends the Fall. The entity works its way back to the light and breaks through, a point comes when the entity separates from the stone, by seeing the rock as separate.[p67-68]
Genesis - the book of distinctions:
Light/darkness.
Heaven/earth.
Waters above/waters below.
Earth/seas.
As soon as man is created, god puts him into an artificial environment, a garden - distinct from the raw natural environment of other creatures.
Adam's first activities are gardening (distinguishing plants) and naming (distinguishing every item of creation by name). These are forms of control, because of his insecurity (animals live entirely with what they're given; man is naked, has to make everything to meet his needs).
With the fall, god becomes insecure, because one distinction is lost - that between man and gods; both now know good and evil. So why did he create man in his image???
